|
Letter on Database Protection to House Judiciary Committee Chairman
Association of American Universities (AAU) January 25, 2001
The Honorable Jim Sensenbrenner, Jr. Dear Chairman Sensenbrenner: We are writing on behalf of the Association of American Universities, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the American Council on Education, the National Academies, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. These organizations represent nearly 2,000 colleges and universities and the scientists and engineers who conduct the nation's science research and education programs in these institutions, in industry, and in government and independent research laboratories and institutes. We first would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your appointment as Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary. We are pleased that someone with your impressive knowledge and experience is at the helm of this important committee. We wish to comment on database protection legislation, which is intended to protect investments in compilations of information. As a member of Congress who has been at the forefront of policy and budget issues in science and education for many years, you are well aware of the importance of those sectors to our nation's past successes and future challenges. Laws that protect and promote intellectual creativity and its innovative products are an important component of research and education programs. However, it is essential for those laws to maintain a balance between the proprietary rights of intellectual property owners and the limitations on those rights, limitations that encourage the appropriate use of intellectual property to the benefit of society. Overprotection of the fruits of our citizens' creativity can be as damaging as their underprotection. As you know, various proposals for database legislation have been before the Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property since 1996. In our respective organizations' previous testimony before the Subcommittee and in letters to Congress, we have expressed support for carefully balanced database legislation. We recognize a need to fill a gap in intellectual property law, one that would protect proprietary databases against parasitical copying and promote public dissemination of databases that might otherwise not be published for fear of misappropriation. At the same time, we have testified to a set of concerns about the deleterious effects that overprotection would have on the nation's research and educational systems due to reduced access to and use of factual information, including the constriction of the constitutionally protected public domain in data. Thus, while we would like to see the adoption of appropriately focused database legislation, we cannot support legislation that, in our judgment, would do more harm than good by unreasonably restricting access to and use of information that does not otherwise meet the standards of originality and creativity under copyright law. We commend Representative Coble for making a number of positive changes to the database legislation before his subcommittee in response to the concerns that we and others have expressed previously. We recognize as well the difficulties in drafting a bill that adequately addresses the interests of all stakeholders, including the American public. Because substantial differences among the major stakeholder groups have not yet been resolved, we urge you to initiate formal, good faith negotiations among the respective parties to bring this process to a successful conclusion. Our organizations are committed to playing a constructive role in helping the Committee achieve a balanced outcome that serves the best interests not only of American science and education, but of our entire information economy and the broader society. We would very much like to meet with you in the near future to discuss this and related intellectual property issues of importance to higher education and science that are likely to come before your committee. Sincerely,
Nils Hasselmo
Richard S. Nicholson
Stanley O. Ikenberry
C. Peter Magrath
Bruce Alberts
Wm. A. Wulf
Kenneth I. Shine, M.D.
cc: Representative Howard L. Berman
|